"We showed signs of just not being together," said Tony Allen, which is true, if he meant massive, billboard-sized signs emblazoned in neon lights.

The Grizzlies lost to the Phoenix Suns at FedExForum Tuesday, 96-90. And the score wasn't even the ugly part.

Uglier: Zach Randolph got exactly one shot in the fourth quarter. This on a night when he looked more like his own self, going for 21 points and 13 rebounds.

Why?

"That's what coach wants," said Randolph. "Our game is pick-and-roll now."

Uglier: With 32 seconds left, down by 4, the Griz

zlies still had a shot to win. The play was a quick 3-pointer by ... Darrell Arthur? Really?

Yes, the 3-pointer missed.

Uglier: Explaining the loss, Hollins twice pointed out that when Gasol got in foul trouble, he couldn't put in another big to match up with Luis Scola and Marcin Gortat.

"One of the issues that I have is that neither Darrell or Ed (Davis) are fives. We don't have another big guy. We weren't able to play big and have two bigger people across the board because we don't have a bigger guy to put in the game."

In other words, Hollins no longer had Mo Speights or Hamed Haddadi because they were traded away. Did Hollins mean it as a shot?

It almost doesn't matter, honestly. When the head coach spends part of his press conference lamenting what he no longer has on his roster, that's not a good sign.

But that's where the Grizzlies are right now. Everyone in the locker room seems confused. Tony Wroten has gone from not playing to playing to not playing. Bayless has gone from backup point guard to backup shooting guard to backup point. Hollins is trying to figure out if and where Austin Daye and Davis fit in the lineup. Same with Chris Johnson, back for a second 10-day stint.

Oh, and all that pales next to the larger issues of establishing – or re-establishing – the identity of the team. Once Rudy Gay was traded, the idea was that the team would go back to playing through its big men, Randolph and Gasol. And yet, in the two games since the trade, the Grizzlies have been outscored in the paint by Washington and Phoenix.

Some of that is because Randolph (against Washington) and Gasol (against Phoenix) have taken turns being awful. Some of it is because Hollins seems to prefer to run the pick-and-roll to throwing it to Z-Bo in the paint.

Give Randolph credit, after the game. He was trying his best to behave. He kept saying that the pick-and-roll is "who we are now." But you can tell he's not necessarily happy about it.

So that is the state of the Grizzlies as they get ready for critical games against Atlanta (tonight) and Golden State (Friday). It's an odd position for a team that recently considered itself elite. This is exactly what the new management risked when it decided not to wait until the end of the season to remake the roster. The skeptics will be out in force today.

In the end, the Grizzlies will have to do what they have always done under Hollins. Put aside the excuses and focus on the task at hand. This is a team that survived the loss of Gay and Randolph in successive seasons, after all. Will it let itself be done in by a pair of trades?

"We have to get back to work, " said Allen. "If we do that, we'll be OK."

At which point, someone asked if these were still the grit-and-grind Grizzlies.